Synopsis.
Initially called to Tampa to assist Gene Stewart in the automation of
well-water measurement, which lasted for just a few months. Residing at
first in the northwest suburb called Town’n Country,
I was attracted to the nearby Church of the Incarnation. I joined their
choir, and became a Lector. A few of my fellow parishioners crewed a Public Access program featuring a retired
Catholic priest, and invited me to join. I soon produced both single &
series programs of my own, starting with weekly involvement, and tapering
over a dozen years to one program a year. The final online installment,
from 2010, of my evaluation of TBCN (with my associated resources), is
available at http://atb.daurril.org/.

All the preceding was of
course devoid of income. Obtaining employment continued to be difficult,
and the jobs found hardly ever related to computers. Housing was not easy
either. After much trial & error in both areas, I managed to settle in
at James Hale’s estate at 601 W Warren, for nearly a dozen years.
Co-resident Bill Kyle worked for a drive service, so I joined him there for
the last few years in this period, eventually, because of my talent for the
strange use of MS’s Excel, becoming the company’s paymaster. My final
employment was as a playback operator at WTTA c, UHF digital ch 38, in Riverview.

1987.1: It seems Mr. Stewart’s last economic
effort in West Virginia (before he managed to save all his possessions before
his house burned down) had to do with devising a way to monitor water levels
in a distributed system of wells. He carried that thought with him as he
joined his somewhat well-employed children in Florida. Daughter Lissa was
working for Disney, skinny little Tori was a go-go dancer, and daddy’s boy Ronnie
was in jail. My tall nominal Godson Chet was simply staying out of trouble.

Our plan was to use Commodore 64
$600 machines to convert each well’s local signals to something that could be
seen from a central site. Once totally apprised of his intent, I could not
but conclude I was back to my 1976 situation with Datapoint, now involving
serious access to electrical engineering tools. Nor was I ever aware of how
we would get the plans for any accrual well. Even though that plan just kind
of faded away, the Stewarts & I continued to socialize publically. Until
Gene noticed I ordinarily did not wear clothes at home, which, though his
grown children were never there, distressed him considerably. And I suppose
caused his attractive but simple wife to confess she & I had dallied
briefly in that state some fifteen years earlier in Chicago. So with a
howling and gnashing of teeth, his whole family withdrew forever from the
displeasure of my company.

1987.2:
Leaving Twelve Oaks, I obtained both
housing & employment as the DP Manager at the nearby Rocky Creek
Village, a slightly upscale trailer camp whose main housing
efforts were directed to the accommodation of nearly destitute but somehow
financially endowed Catholic Religious. I use the present tense, because not
only did these retired nuns pay to live typically in a locally designed
four-quad, but also ministered to the various health & spiritual needs of
their co-villagers.

Headquartered in Miami, it was under the
local direction of an ex-seminarian but closet Methodist named Bill Lupo. Providing again housing (a trailer of
my own) & a stipend, my ticket to the job being that all their software
was written in BASIC – the same stuff I taught at Valley College five years
earlier.

Shortly after I made the first COA,
Incarnation’s Administrator showed up at my trailer with a box of clothes. It
seems Father Michael O’Reilly thought I
might be interested in a wardrobe improvement – possibly the nicest gesture I
ever received from the Church. And orders of magnitude greater than anything
I would experience from his successor.

The Miami operation’s main concern was the
daily recording of news broadcasts on every local channel, in order to sell
the folk mentioned a brief record of their public appearance. The Jewish
owner of that enterprise thought I might be interested in some kind of
participation from Tampa, so I was thrice invited to visit him there. What
caught my attention by the third time was that while there I had seen nothing
of the rest of Miami. Being far brighter than his local subordinate, he decided
to lend me his powder blue Cadillac convertible (top down) for all that sunny
afternoon. Travelled all over the beaches & highways, never got out of
the car. Truly memorable.

I shared space at Rocky Creek with their
official bookkeeper, a wonderful old time Italian named Mario. A few years into my tour, it occurred to
Lupo that in order to earn my keep I needed to be more involved in
bookkeeping. While that may have been a valuable direction, I could not in
principle agree, and quit. Lupo decided to challenge my subsequent UC claim,
and he brought his shapely Cuban lawyer to the referee’s hearing to amplify
his arguments. My basic position was that I was hired to perform certain
duties not normally connected to those now proposed. He would argue that I had
agreed otherwise. Coerced witnesses from the office agreed with him. Finally
the referee suggested over my obvious distress that we call Mario, who had
been left at home without a briefing. Recasting Lupo’s arguments for him,
Mario told us all over the speakerphone that he had never heard such bullshit
in all his life. Claim granted, case dismissed.

Simultaneously, Al Valentine & June
Reynolds thought I might be interested in joining their crew of about
a half dozen, producing Bill Buckley’s Religion Today program at downtown’s
nascent Public Access center. (I was even for a while June (and Al’s) tenant:
she BTY being a national swimming champ in her age bracket.) While I’m
thinking of them, I might mention that they being aware of my childhood
affection for another June called Allyson,
told me about Ella Geisman’s scheduled appearance in a forthcoming UCC
program in 1993. A weekend of terrible weather, the prescribed March 13th
show went on and recalling it I was inspired to create Allyson
Without Tears. On Wikipedia,
one of the very few celebrity bios supported by a dedicated & approved
fan site.

Although occasionally nearly homeless, I
was involved from 1987 thru 2000 as both a user & critic of the politics
& production facilities of three successive ‘Public Access’ managements at
1001 W North B Street, on the University of Tampa Campus. As a user I
produced & hosted two or three 13-week in-house Studio A series called “catholicism - the ecumenical series,” with a
very deliberate small initial “c”. On the other side of the coin, my critical
stance was first expressed over the year 1990 as four separate ass-kicking “we shall overcome” Studio C programs, protesting
management’s programmer abuse.

Unlike most of my colleagues, my producing efforts
were usually off-site, involving either a single camera, or two different
configurations of Access’ four-camera mobile unit (the ‘van’). Two of these
latter enterprises might be called “series” efforts:

Over the 12-year period 1987 thru 1999, Produced
about ten annual COA van shoots at
Incarnation.

COA (Choirs of Advent) was my version of
what Town’n Country called their Ecumenical
Christmas Service.

Over the 4-year period 1991 thru 1994,
taped their Music department’s annual May extravaganza at Seminole Presbyterian Church (in 2000 becoming
Cambridge
Christian School). Coincidently these starred the music
director’s son, & often included the headmaster’s daughter. After the
earlier single “HiTops,” series programs
included "Music Man", "Fiddler on the Roof," and "Oklahoma!"

Life under the Tampa-Hillsborough regime
was described for several years (and several editions) on http://atb.daurril.org/.
Access to the more textual version is inaugurated anytime by using the history(accessing 7,902 items, 190
MB) button in the home page’s left margin.
Navigation may then be directed to any of the several periods discussed
(including the early part of TBCN’s), ordered chronologically.

In 1909 I also began to present an
alternative, more video-oriented interpretation, implemented in two sections
(and sequentially available under videos from http://daurril.org/’s left margin).
The first
tells of the “remote” productions I made
as entertainment, the second
offers a video history taken largely from my recorded interactions with
Advisory. Unfortunately, the next chapter in my
bio will tell how my occasional success in individual controversy with HCC
faculty apparently caused the vengeful loss of Facebook's supporting videos
pertaining to this period.

Some of the preceding shoots have rather
interesting sidebar tales, which are forthcoming. However, at the moment I
can only offer glimpses from my earliest commentary already posted, as well
as the conclusion of 1990’s “Family Christmas
Festival” under the direction of David
Clarke Isele. (From https://www.youtube.com/user/accesstbay,
‘daurril at public access’)

Ridiculed for mainstream consumption as
something like 1992’s Wayne’s World,
the public
access universe in Tampa was a much more sinister reality. Players
here did include County residents, who might actually use the designated
resources for their advertised purpose – and therefore editorially despised
as underserving a by the Tampa Tribune.
Other on-site players were hardly concerned with furthering careers within
the producing community. Intent on crippling and eventually destroying any
local pursuit of the First Amendment were folk from the T-H Cable Advisory Committee (each member
appointed by one of the City Council or County Board), some operator’s own
Board of Directors, special cable advisors to the City and County (and the
latter’s Attorneys), and competing Access (Government & Education)
interests.

Local politicians embraced ‘deserving’ as defined by the national (at first)Alliance for Community Mediab, and embraced as well one Louise Thompson (queen of the local N.O.W.
establishment) as their appropriately inexperienced spokesman for that media.
Deserving’ would now be, from Sea to Shining Sea, America’s Non-Profits (NPOs) – recognized as such when a
former PA facility began to invoke the term ‘Community’
in its banner (like Speak Up’s TBCN, Tampa Bay Community Network, & its
bogus history).
Producers as individuals were no longer the primary consumers of a communication
facility’s resources – they were as transparent labor to accommodate some
NPO’s larger purpose. Facilities were no longer free, available instead now
only to those who could afford them.

It
seems, especially now from the perspective of 2017, that my ATBs are the only public record of interaction
between PATV's producers & local government in the two decades straddling
our last century mark. As a party to several of these, four are noteworthy - three before the TH-CAC, one before the County
Board. The first (1992-11-03) was a grievance begging relief from my
temporary suspension, properly filed and pursued under P&P rules. Their
Chair simply lied about some non-existent allegations said to have been
provided me, and my rebuttal was casually dismissed on Jane Fagan’s opinion that I was not properly
before the Committee - with which member John Bales►, doing his job, concurred.

Toward the end of 1993 two prominent members
of the current AMC were charged with some violation of the Center’s rules for
producer behavior, and denied access to the premises. Martin & Amanda
Ortega therefore sought relief from their exclusion through the TH-CAC’s grievance procedure. Following former
chairman Roque’s suggestion, resolution was assigned to Cynthia Henderson’s Policies & Procedures
subcommittee. Responding to Jeff Arnwine’s query on 1/11/1994, Henderson
reported that her group saw no connection between P&P's responsibilities
and the material they were given to consider, and it was not within her
subcommittee's purview to adjudicate suspensions – both team members being
bar-certified attorneys. With Martin Ortega still at the podium, Arnwine
conceded that the issue was properly returned to the full committee for its
future consideration.

On 2/2/1994 the establishment decided to
replay 1/11/1994 with a new team. Amanda replaced Martin, Vice-Chair Olson replaced
Arnwine, and minutes while approved were not reviewed. Otherwise, Committee
attendees from the earlier meeting were all the same. The meeting started
around 6 PM, and from about 6:30 till 8 Amanda’s concerns became the platform
for general discussion. Her tribulation now concerned something called “the Ortegas,” because her 10-year old unattended
son was not allowed entry to host his program. Thrashing about in this red
herring were constant calls (from Olson, Roque, and Turano) for the pregnant
and absent Henderson to deliver the report (already given).

Thrown in the
group allowed to speak at the end of a meeting, at 8:21:36 PM I began the second of my unforgettable moments before the TH-CAC. By some incredible miracle, I had chosen
to augment my prepared remarks with a verbatim account of what Cynthia said
on January 11th. While telling this, Kempfe (the Access manager) and the
County’s representative, left the room, and Amanda took a seat behind me.Oblivious to the fact that my remarks in progress contradicted everything
she had orchestrated in the preceding 1.5 hours, Olson moved to shut me down
after 3 minutes. I demurred, and took another 2 to sum up what I thought
Cynthia had said, ending at 8:26:07 PM. There would however be more candy for
the Church’s
representative: Olson would soon be promoted to chair Hillsbourgh County’s School Board,
and would retire from the Board in 2014.

Later in 1994 I was so bold as to notice
“Advisory has been relentless in its effort to create a reality where Access
natives are not citizens but imperial subjects, reserving ‘civilized’ rules to themselves and leaving us to
whatever ‘rat pack’ percolates to be our
leadership.” It is new doubly unfortunate, that local legislators take such
delight in thwarting what for many of their citizens is a first serious
opportunity for direct political experience, and that the franchisee has been
so successful in convincing its clientele that occupational success in
commercial production (with attendant servitude) as the only respectable goal
of public access involvement.” For reasons disclosed in my next meeting’s
minutes, I decided to challenge the appointment of one Joel Provost as our AMC rep. On 5/12/94 my
contentions were rejected at a Step 3 hearing at 612.Horato St #6; Tampa
33606. Unfortunately, there are neither minutes nor any visual record of that
proceeding.

On 7/7/94 my request to Fred Karl for inclusion as a time-certain
presenter at the Regular BOOC meeting 7/13/94 was refused. Soon after, Jeff Arnwine did grant me a time-certain appearance
before Cable on August 3rd. On 1994-08-03 that became my third
appearance before that august body. It seems this time I convinced at least a
few members my concerns were legitimate, but my thought drew only
constructive contempt from Dunk’n Donuts
most illustrious patron, Fortune Bosco.

The
fourth (2005-08-17) was
my effort to share useful programming with Pat
Bean's establishment, offering a product documented in ATB under Special
Collections. Akin to recognizing the public’s presence as
media regulars, the idea was to respect the continuing (or at least
repetitious) occurrence of another group of concerned citizens appearing in
the Public Comments section of the County’s Board meetings. Nowadays called
an 'app,' the intent of this device was to provide an easily accessible
history of those appearances, which may affect a commissioner’s
conversation with any one of them in the context of some present issue. The
full text of each set of their remarks, plus a photo marking each occasion,
was online for any individual of interest.

This Bean, not that much different from
the legendary Roy, felt the County's
existing practice was more than sufficient: i.e.burying PC
appearances in an amorphous set of minutes (emphatically without pictures)
was a hardly insufficient deterrent to their serious recovery. On Jun 16,
2010 - ABC Action News uploaded
'Hillsborough County Administrator Pat Bean was fired after commissioners
voted to fire with cause 6-1.' As the cause for her dismissal would not be
found precisely ‘criminal,’ she would later be awarded compensation
considerably in excess of what she had already misappropriated.

It seems my
ability to preserve custodial material was not confined to infamous revelation
describing our local government’s poor sense of obligation to service the
First Amendment aspirations of its citizens. It had also to do with private
industry’s very positive effort to support programmers here and elsewhere, as
tools appropriate to its publications in the 21st century became
available. And therefore far beyond the mischief given to the public as
helpful to its simpler needs, by its government in Tampa.

Beginning in 1999, and continuing thru
2001, Wrox
published tutorials in a free collection also available here as ASPToday.
As I noticed on 2001: to the best of my
knowledge, no similar representation of (this) content exists in any other
public space on the net: enjoy! My online collection contains 1,080
articles supported by 972 zip folders. Again, enjoy!

Even my lowly & rather embarrassing tenure
as a drive services’ employee gave me some continuing engagement in
programming. While a driver for ServiceMaster
at TIA I concocted a model in FoxPro that might track the movement of
vehicles within our dispatcher’s control. Promoted to being SM’s newly
invented paymaster for its driving population, I gave up on the FoxPro for a
less demanding involvement with Excel. Eventually having to deal with
management’s notion of my insufficiency, similar to what happened 15 years
earlier at Rocky Creek, I found it necessary abandon my tasks (without my
solution) to their better care.

While my interest in Public
Access continues into the following biographical period and will be
mentioned again there, I will close this, and introduce the next, with some
report on housing.

For a while I shared
bachelor apartments in a confortable old house on 7th Avenue, even
convincing the resident junkyard dog to be my friend. Rent always being a
problem, I satisfied my last few months by producing a video for the
landlord on the pleasures of the neighborhood.

Just after producing one
covering the wedding of an Incarnation friend of mine’s daughter, I found
myself down to renting a ghetto hovel from the Studio’s principle junkie
employee. I next lived for a while at co-producer & co-worker (Tampa
Tribune) Darrin Martin’s house, till he needed my room to house the start
of his new family – now finishing college. Later he rented me his whole
entire original home on Ola Street – unfortunately already condemned by the
City. Found by another Access member, I lived in Temple Terrace until his
family determined I was not RC enough to be there. I finally settled into
co-producer Jim Hale’s 601 Warren, for many years.